


exposure

by zenstrike



Series: you’re lucky that’s what i like [27]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Devotion, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Queerplatonic Relationships, Romance, That’s right: DEVOTION, idk what else to call it, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 22:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17537825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: Four side stories:Keith and Lance visit Hunk.A loving embrace, for Colleen.Hunk bakes bread and Keith is amazed.And, Keith and Lance buy a bottle of whiskey, for Darcy and based off the prompt: “Your heartbeat’s really loud.”





	exposure

Lancey: LET US IN

 

Hunk squinted.

He frowned.

He twisted in his desk chair and eyed his door, half-expecting Lance to burst through. Like it was first year all over again and Lance and Keith were just down the hall, waiting to pounce and be noisy and bickering and lovey dovey.

He drummed his fingers against his phone and it buzzed again.

 

Keith <3: we’re downstairs

Keith <3: let us in please

 

Hunk sighed and heaved himself out of his chair and pulled on a sweater and hid his smile by chewing on one of his sleeves. He shuffled down the hall in his half-tied shoes, ignored the noise in the floor lounge, and took the elevator downstairs—alone with the trash and smeared handprint on the doors.

 

Lancey: HUNK

Lancey: ARE YOU THERE

 

Keith <3: hello

Keith <3: hello?

 

Hunk chewed on his sleeve some more. He imagined Keith and Lance huddled by the downstairs door, eyeing their phones.

And then he saw them, peering through the slit in the window. Lance banged his hand against the glass when he saw Hunk. Keith ducked out of sight.

They both stumbled back when Hunk pushed open the door, the familiar cafeteria smells wafting over his face.

“Hi,” he said.

“We should have fobs,” Lance said by way of greeting, gesturing at the beeping card reader next to the door. “You should get us fobs. You have keys to our place.”

“Hi Hunk,” Keith said and slipped under Hunk’s arm. “We brought movies.”

“I’m studying,” Hunk said.

“Time for a break.”

“I’m serious about the fobs!” Lance said, following Keith.

“Leave him alone.”

“We wouldn’t have to wait if we had fobs.” Lance gasped. “We should have kept ours!”

“No.”

“Then Hunk should move out of res.”

Hunk stepped away from the door and let it swing shut, heavy and loud. Keith and Lance kept going, half-leaning towards each other with Lance swinging a bag that Hunk assumed was full of snacks and Keith tugging regularly at his backpack straps. Hunk had a warm vision of them crowding onto his rickety, skinny bed and someone eventually falling to the floor and his own homework forgotten.

Keith paused, grabbing at Lance’s sleeve and twisting to look back at Hunk.

“I’m coming,” Hunk said, hurrying after them.

 

 

* * *

  

 

  Lance liked it best when he was squished between the wall and Keith—Keith, who pressed close and sometimes left sleepy kisses against the back of his neck and proved again and again how surprisingly touchy he was, and the wall, which grounded Lance when he felt a swell and a rush in his chest. Love felt a lot like uncertainty. Safety felt a lot like falling.

    He liked it best with his hand splayed against the wall and his own breath caught in his throat and Keith breathing softly behind him. He liked it best when he could finally let go of the wall and touch Keith’s hand, settled on his hip or his stomach or just resting on his shoulder. He liked it best when he could turn and shuffle just that little bit closer so the lines separating who was holding who became blurred and eventually fell away.

    He made this discovery in late December, when a gnawing terror kept him awake through most of the night—terror, of exams and travel during the holidays, yes, but more the terror of being away from Keith for the first time.

    Keith—yeah, Keith, who was surprisingly touchy, but yeah, Keith, who was so quick to pull away when he imagined a misstep or if Lance got just a little too flustered.

    _I don’t want to scare you off_ , Keith had muttered and Lance hadn’t known what to make of that so he had said nothing. He didn’t know, yet, how to make Keith stay. He wasn’t always sure he could make himself stay. He knew he wanted to stay. He knew he wanted Keith to stay. He knew he _wanted_ —

    Christmas, he dreamt about Keith. Simple things. Holding hands. Waking up together. (The bed was always so much bigger in his dreams.)

    He never wondered if Keith would still want him, in the new year. He never wondered if the magic of it all would fade away when they saw each other again.

    He loved to fall asleep with Keith talking softly on the phone.

    And in January, they rolled onto Keith’s bed together and Lance huffed once and pulled one of Keith’s arms over him and Keith grumbled but pressed close and they held on tight together. (They learned the secret was to hold on to each other. They learned this in steps. They learned to be the weight to hold the them that was an _us_ together.)

    _I like this_ , Lance muttered in February and dragged his hand from the wall. And Keith had said: _me too_ . And he counted Keith’s breaths after he fell asleep and he practiced saying _I love you, I love you, I love you_ to the wall and he rolled over in Keith’s arms and he whispered _I love you, I love you, I love you_ until he thought his face would melt off or Keith would wake up and scowl and pull away and where would that leave Lance?

    A little desperate, maybe. A little needy.

    In March, Hunk woke them up and Keith rolled out of bed. This happened four times. The fourth time, Lance leaned over the edge of the bed and watched Keith drag himself up onto his elbows, cursing the heavens and Hunk and the tiny dorm beds, and Lance thought that the Keith in his dreams could never live up to the Keith of his waking hours.

    He wondered if something that burned so hot and so loud could last forever.

    And in April, Keith whispered reassurances to his back and held on tight when Lance rolled in to him. All the tension and the insufferable noise in Lance’s head fell away and he didn’t hesitate to think that _let’s move in together_ was the first, steady step to forever.

    (“It’s a little intense,” he admitted to his step-mother with the summer sun warming his skin. He rubbed his chin. He rocked on the balls of his feet and he thought of the way Keith toppled into his chest after a long day, and he thought of watching Keith brush his teeth in the morning and stumble out the door when he was late. “Is that normal?”

    And his step-mother had hummed and asked: “Does it feel right?”

    Keith felt like more than that, more than _right_ or _wrong_.

    “It feels good.”)

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   “It’s bread.”

    Keith scratched his neck. “No, it’s not.”

    Hunk frowned.

    “Uh,” Hunk said. “Yes, it is?”

    “That’s impossible.”

    On the other side of the table, Lance threw back his head and groaned. The girls at the table over glanced over at him. Keith heard a giggle.

    Next to him, Hunk scraped some butter over what Keith could only call The Most Perfect Piece of Bread He Had Ever Seen. Had Hunk brought the butter with him? Had he sliced the perfect slices of perfect bread himself?

    “Of course he did,” Lance said, leaning his elbows on the table and rolling his eyes at Keith.

    “I said that out loud?”

    “You said that out loud.”

    Keith couldn’t even summon a kernel of embarrassment.

    “I don’t know if it’s perfect,” Hunk muttered. He held the bread out to Keith. “But I don’t think it’s bad.”

    “It’s amazing,” Keith said. Maybe a little too seriously.

    Hunk blinked at him.

    “Eat the bread, Keith,” Lance said, and nudged Keith’s ankle under the table. “Before you pass out.”

    “I’m not going to pass out,” Keith grumbled.

    He felt a little like he was going to pass out.

    “It’s just bread,” Hunk said.

    But it wasn’t just bread, was it? It was further proof that Hunk was _actually_ the most Perfect Human that had ever existed. When Keith thought about making—baking? constructing?—bread, his brain shorted out. Bzzt—and shut down. Like Lance if Keith caught him off guard and reminded him that he had the most marvelous butt in the universe, or Adam if Shiro casually mentioned that he read a book Adam or Keith had left lying around.

    Or Keith. Anytime Hunk—created.

    And here Hunk was. With a little baggie of bread that he had made with his own bare hands. Like an angel, descended from on high or however the fuck that went.

    Keith was blessed. Actually blessed.

    “I’m happy to be alive,” Keith announced to the table. Again, maybe a little too seriously.

    “You’re intense about the strangest things,” Hunk said, and waved the bread slice a little. “Please eat this.”

    Lance sat up, suddenly and a with a gasp, and snapped his fingers. “New nickname!” he said and waved his hands with Lance-grade enthusiasm toward Keith. “ _Sourdough_.”

    Keith thought that was halfway acceptable.

    Lance beamed.

    Hunk put the bread slice in Keith’s waiting hands.

    “I live a perfect existence,” Keith said.

    “Why are you like this?” Lance said.

    “Never change, Keith,” Hunk added and prodded his shoulder. “Eat the bread. You’re killing me.”

    Keith ate the slice in two bites. Lance burst into bright, star-quality, way-too-loud laughter and pressed his forehead to the table.

    “Did you chew?” Hunk whispered.

    Keith swallowed. He licked his lips. Lance kept laughing, his shoulders shaking.

    “Hunk,” Keith said. “I love you.”

    Hunk squinted at him. He tapped his fingers against the baggie. “But does that mean it was good?”

    “Everything is good.”

    “You are somehow the best person to test food on,” Hunk said. “And also the worst.”

    Keith decided to take that as a compliment.

  

 

* * *

 

 

    They splurged on a bottle of bad whiskey after muttered admissions that they didn’t know a damn thing about whiskey except that Keith had once read in a book that it made you warm or something. It took them too long to find their IDs. The guy at the check-out answered something like seven text messages and Lance couldn’t stop snickering. They shoved their way back to res through a snowstorm, slipping and sliding and holding tight to each other, and hid the whiskey in Keith’s bulky coat on their way up and back to their room.

    Whiskey was nasty. Or, the stuff they’d bought was nasty. Lance laughed some more. Keith swore a lot. They locked the door and piled some blankets on the floor and crowded close to each other and all of a sudden Lance was so drunk the room was spinning and he had every excuse in the world to snuggle up to Keith and let Keith hold him, all tight and warm and affectionate.

    Keith hummed a little. Pressed sloppy kisses to Lance’s forehead. Red emerged briefly for a snack and then went back to sleep.

    Lance stopped laughing eventually but his smile seemed stuck to his face.

    The wind whistled against their window and everything outside of Keith and their blankets was cold. The overhead lights of their room was huge and nasty and overwhelming, but Keith was rubbing a wobbly circle against Lance’s back and breathing slowly.

    “Your heartbeat’s really loud,” Lance whispered, rubbing his cheek against Keith’s chest.

    “What?”

    “Loud,” Lance repeated. “Your heart.” He paused, listening again. “Fast, too.”

    “Your fault,” Keith sighed, the hand on Lance’s back stilling.

    Lance snickered. “No way.”

    “Yeah way.”

    Lance rolled his eyes and teetered his way up on one elbow, squinting down at Keith. Keith blinked back up at him, his mouth twitching into a smile (he’d store that smile away in his heart, in time, he’d treasure it and keep it forever).

    “Are you sure?”

    “Yes,” Keith replied seriously. “About what?”

    “Me,” Lance said, his smile so wide he was a little afraid his face was going to split open. “Making your heart all—ka-thunky.”

    “Ka-thunky.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “‘course I’m sure,” Keith said, maybe mumbled. “It doesn’t do that for anyone but you.”

    Lance twitched. His cheeks were warm and his heart was thudding, so loud he couldn’t think.

    “Aren’t you embarrassed?” he asked.

    “Very,” Keith replied, and tapped his chest. His smile was so small and handsome and sloppy all at once. Lance thought he could feel it under his skin, warm and growing. “Go ahead and check.”

    Lance leaned down until his arm gave out and he fell back onto Keith’s chest, his pulse thrumming in his throat and Keith’s heart ka-thunking away beneath him. “I thought it was just me.”

    “Nope,” Keith said, catching Lance’s hand and twisting their fingers together. “It’s you and me.”

    “You and me,” Lance echoed.

    “That’s right,” Keith whispered.

    They rolled, clumsy and still holding tight to each other, and Lance laughed again. When he found Keith’s lips and tasted his smile, the laughter died in his throat but built, and built, and built in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! i hope you liked these little ones.


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